


Solstice and Solitude: A Yuletide Carol

by darkmagess



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas, Ghosts, Gifts Love Language, Holidays, Kissing, M/M, Misunderstandings, Monster of the Week, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28109256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkmagess/pseuds/darkmagess
Summary: Jaskier has never stayed with Geralt through winter before. As Yule approaches, they find themselves caught in a blizzard and encounter a monster threatening the closest town. Jaskier's Yule gift also drives a wedge of tension between them, making a cold winter even colder.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 38
Kudos: 251





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flirtygaybrit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flirtygaybrit/gifts).



> Thanks to [NocturnalKnowitall](https://nocturnalknowitall.tumblr.com/) and the indominable [dls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dls/pseuds/dls) for their beta read work. 
> 
> **Pronunciations**  
>  Arcaibh (Ark-ev)  
> Beathag (Bay-hack)  
> Floireans (Florence)  
> Nevais (Nev-ish)  
> Raonaid (Ro-nitch)  
> Tormod (Tor-uh-mut)

Geralt thumbed the edge of a page as he read, toying with the sharpness of the thick paper. The fireplace popped and crackled as newly laid wood dried itself in the heat and gave off the scent of apple, and morning light slanted through the windows in bright silence, while Novigrad still slumbered. He sat on the bed, back against the headboard, clothed in black and grey wools and heavy cotton. Reading. Waiting. His belongings packed and ready for travel. 

Jaskier’s belongings packed and ready for travel. 

Geralt reached the end of the page and stared at the last word, frowning as the text slipped from his ice-slick memory. He scowled at himself and started over. 

They switched off winters, the witchers. Just because it got cold didn’t mean the monsters hibernated. And so, neither could they. A long-dulled bitterness sucked at Geralt’s heart, when his turn came. The winter was  _ their _ time. To return to the keep. To rest. But with so few of them left, someone had to make the rounds. Just in case. 

This year, Jaskier’s questions were endless. A stone in his boot. An exposed nail in the saddle. Where was he planning to go? What beasts might he see? What lurked in the cold? Was it true the necrophages multiplied in the dead months? Where will you spend Yule?

_ “Nowhere.” _

_ “Alone?” Jaskier’s forehead furrowed. “That sounds dreadful.” _

_ Geralt watched him quietly over the rim of his tankard. The bard studied his drink.  _

_ “I could…” Jaskier shrugged a little. Glanced up once. “Stay on.” _

_ And there it was. What Jaskier had been working himself up to all evening. Geralt set his drink down and sighed. _

_ “It won’t be fun.” _

_ “Geralt--” _

_ “What about Oxenfurt?” _

_ Jaskier heaved a sigh of his own. “I don’t  _ want  _ a semester at Oxenfurt.” _

_ He lifted an eyebrow. “Or a steady job in a nobleman’s court?” _

_ The bard cut him a steady look. “Or that.” _

He wanted to see the devils in winter, with his own eyes. And Geralt… could use the warm body. The warmer company in the bleakest of seasons. He should be better off alone, and yet… The solitude chafed. 

Yennefer’s appearances in his life were flashes of lightning, followed, always, by a crush of thunder that seemed to echo in the hollow under his ribs. The memory of her smile etched the loneliness deeper, tattooed it on his bones. He could remember a time when it felt right to be alone. Felt safe. Free.

They were someone else’s memories. Someone without this new sense attuned to empty spaces. And he felt them everywhere… In the merely friendly spans between Jaskier reaching for him and reaching for him again. In the knowledge that when they parted, his place would be quickly filled: a countess, a barmaid, a baker’s son. While Jaskier’s absence would yawn with silence and sharp teeth, and no number of willing whores with clever hands could match the many memories of small kindnesses. 

No one at all would wile away the hours on the road.

It was ill-advised to bring Jaskier on the Winter’s Path.

_ The bard placed his hands flat on the table. “I’m serious. This year, let me come with you.” _

_ And the prospect of the long nights and cold ground and lean hunting unfurled with a dull ache of dread. A moment’s resistance to the self-indulgence of bringing company--the weakness--rallied briefly, then withered. And then, shaking his head a little, “If you insist.” _

Jaskier had further insisted on a detour to Novigrad after spending Saovine in Temeria. The bard hadn’t said where he was going, or why. Just that he had an errand and would be back and not to try to leave him behind,  _ again _ . And so Geralt sat, reading, waiting. Taking twice as long to get through a chapter as he should, because they should have set out at dawn. 

Footsteps in the hallway caught his errant attention, and Geralt listened for a moment before setting the book aside. He watched as the door unlocked and whisked open, and Jaskier swept into the room, his cheeks nearly as red as the heavy cloak that danced about him as he moved. Geralt stood, eager to be on their way, and grabbed the book to stash in his bag. 

“Got what you needed?” he asked, eyeing a thick bundle in Jaskier’s hands as he tucked the book away. 

“Ah, yes.” The bard cleared his throat and straightened. He took a few steps closer and met Geralt’s gaze. His heartbeat ticked up slightly. “It’s a bit early,” he said, holding out the cotton-wrapped package. “But… I bought this for you, and I’d rather you have it now than wait.”

Geralt’s eyebrows shot up, and his gaze flicked to the package and back to Jaskier’s guileless expression--blue eyes wide, biting at his lower lip. Geralt took it from him, surprised at the weight, and turned to set it down on the bed. 

“What is it?” he asked, pulling at the twine that held it closed.

A hesitant pause. “Yule present,” Jaskier offered. 

And Geralt’s fingers slowed. A shock of chill, of guilt, slipped down his spine. He hadn’t-- He didn’t know they were exchanging Solstice gifts. It was only a couple of days away, and they were leaving town. No time to buy-- He tried to think. What would--

“Is… something wrong?” Jaskier’s voice sounded small. Strained. And it snapped Geralt’s attention back.

He pulled the knots open and unfolded the cotton wrapping to a wafting scent of leather. His gaze fell first to the fur. Long hairs of white and silver fox fur that his fingers went to immediately, stroking through the tickling softness.

_ What-- _

He lifted the garment, and it unfurled with a snap and soft whump into a full-length leather coat and hood of forest green, trimmed in white fur. He laid it back on the bed and traced his fingers over the leather, made to look like-- No, it  _ was _ basilisk scales. Silver buckles held the flaps together, asymmetrical over the breast. He undid them, astonishment tight in his throat, and opened the flaps.

Not just trimmed in fur.

_ Lined _ in fur. Something grey and shaved short. Rabbit perhaps. 

Geralt swallowed as he examined the rest of it. It had slits up the sides and back, which would allow for movement, and small buckles to hold those closed if required. On the inside were leather straps placed so he could tie the flaps to his legs. Over the right shoulder, loops for his scabbards. More loops around the waist for belts. 

It looked… like something the Bear School might have worn, except Geralt was fairly sure Jaskier couldn’t have known that. 

He stared at it. Barely breathed as his nostrils filled with the scent of the tanning and protective oils. It was… expensive. Exquisite. And surely too fine a thing for a witcher. His pulse quickened, and another knot of guilt turned in his stomach. 

“Well?” Jaskier said. “Put it on!”

Geralt looked over at him, wanting to say… something. Jaskier couldn’t afford a gift like this. Geralt didn’t  _ need  _ a gift like this. And yet. What could he do? Refuse it? Jaskier hadn’t found this in a shop somewhere. It had been made to order. To a witcher’s needs. 

He hesitated, then picked it up and slipped the coat on. The weight felt strange as it settled on his shoulders, but he buckled the coat closed to the waist and flexed. 

Not a witcher’s needs. 

_ His. _

Like the artisan had measured him personally. It fit across his chest without stretching and down to his wrists. He moved through several slow pantomimed sword swings, and nothing pulled or bound his motion. 

When he stopped, he found Jaskier staring at him with gleaming eyes.

“Do you like it?” the bard ventured.

Geralt stared down at himself, swiping his hands across the leather and fur. Like? It was too…  _ much _ . He hadn’t done anything to require such a reward. Had no gifts to repay such kindness.

“It’s…” He looked up. “Unnecessary.” And Jaskier’s expression fell. “Beautiful,” Geralt hurried to say. “Fine work.” And as a bead of sweat started to form on his back, he added, “And quite warm. I…”  _ Shouldn’t accept this.  _ “Thank you.”

Jaskier brightened some and smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. And the ache in Geralt’s belly burned hotter. He’d thought he’d gotten better at saying the right things. At pressing thought into shared shapes. But the slow fall of Jaskier’s gaze and the way he swallowed read of disappointment. Geralt searched for more to say. He hadn’t bought Jaskier  _ anything _ and yet received this… magnificent present. Something Jaskier had diverted their whole journey to acquire. 

And for that alone he did not deserve to have it.

“Right,” the bard said at his silence. “Well. You’re welcome.” He cleared his throat and turned away. “Shall we be off, then?”

  
  
  


They left Novigrad heading north, Roach’s saddlebags burdened with Geralt’s armor, which wouldn’t fit under his new overcoat. Jaskier’s blue roan, Arcaibh, was laden with a canvas tent, rattling bundles of poles, the lute, and dried provisions. The cold blew in their faces from the north and carried the comfort of conversation off with it. 

Jaskier, his hands clad in gloves, played no tunes. And Geralt cast him sideways glances as the miles passed beneath them, pondering. He owed him a kiss, at least. 

No… 

The sharp wind sliced at Geralt’s cheeks and made his eyes water, while seeming to miss the rest of him entirely. Gratitude found a home in his chest, a candle flame, glowing and warm. He played idly with the fox fur down the center seam of the coat, even though he couldn’t feel it through the gloves.

No, he  _ wanted _ a kiss, and that was different. But when he nudged Roach closer, Arcaibh shied away. And when they stopped to build a fire and heat some tea and chew through dried venison, Jaskier’s conversation was pleasant but evasive. Geralt stared at his profile while he warmed himself near the fire. Slipped a hand from his glove and touched the bard’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. A touch to warm, to alight human skin with arcane needles of flame. Jaskier ducked from the gesture with the hitch of a sad smile, and Geralt’s heart squeezed for a moment before frustration struck him and curdled to annoyance. With a scowl, he went to tend to the horses. If Jaskier didn’t want an apology, didn’t want a _ mends _ . Well… they’d have a long and miserable trip ahead of them.

They rode north, following the road that in three days’ time would bring them to Tridam. Geralt scanned the horizon idly and let the silence between them harden into one of the gaps he’d grown able to feel. He had learned its edges by fumbling but could chisel them sharper if he wanted. 

When the short day fell to darkness, they made camp at the edge of a copse of trees. Jaskier pulled the gear for the tent down and began assembly. Geralt unslung the hatchet from his belt and savaged a tree by sharp moonlight, hitting a little harder than necessary. Enjoying the thump of the strike and the way it made a sound other than horse hooves and heartbeats. 

He hadn’t meant to fell several trees, but the agitation bled into every swing, and he couldn’t stop until it had wrung out. Until the urge to roar in frustration abated. With a huff that fogged in the cold air, he stuffed a sack full of broken branches and split green wood and hauled it back toward the sound of Jaskier’s muttering. 

The small tent squatted in the moonlight, its sides sagging a little as Jaskier ripped a tent peg from the ground, adjusted it, and started hammering again, fighting the cold earth. Geralt had his own such battle to fight, hacking enough sod up to make a fire-safe pit. A controlled blast of Igni got the fire going, and he fetched the cooking tools from his bags, keeping an ear tuned to Jaskier’s progress. 

Water boiled. Porridge made. And the hammering finally stopped.

Geralt turned and then got up to inspect the little domicile with interest. Jaskier groaned from the exertion and came to his side as Geralt put a fingertip on the joint of the tent poles and wiggled it. The whole tent wobbled from the motion. He turned an arched eyebrow Jaskier’s direction.

“What?”

He grinned. “Sure it will survive a stiff wind?”

The bard glowered at him and shoved the mallet at his chest. “The way you sleep, I’m sure we’ll find out,” he muttered.

Geralt smirked and turned, but the tight set of his companion’s shoulders showed little humor, and his expression fell. Fixing the wobble would salt the wound, so he let the tent stay as it was and made himself quiet as he stowed the mallet in the saddle bags and retrieved their blankets and bedrolls. While Jaskier ate, he laid everything out and lit the candlelier to start warming the interior space, setting it near the back wall. It shouldn't burn anything down. Not so long as the glass and metal casing didn’t touch anything.

Exhausted, he knelt in the half-height tent and stripped off what remained of his gear, leaving thick clothes and boots. He considered the overcoat and buckles and decided to try sleeping without the extra layer. 

Eventually, Jaskier ducked under the tent flap and shuffled around in the glow of the candles. He burrowed under the blankets and cast a look over his shoulder before shuffling close and spreading his cloak over the both of them.

Body heat gathered under the many layers, though icy air still stung on every inhale. Geralt snaked an arm over Jaskier’s side and after a moment molded himself to the man’s back. He inhaled woodsmoke and sandalwood. Lavender... 

Or maybe just the memory of it. 

“Whatever I did to offend you…” he murmured.

“You didn’t offend me.”

He nosed at the small hairs on the back of Jaskier’s neck. “I think I did.”

“ _ Geralt. _ ” And his tone stilled the witcher’s nuzzling. “Let it be. Please.”

He frowned, puzzled. Confused by the silences, stung by the cuts of rejection. Every peace offering slapped from his hand. But he was on the trail of something, even if Jaskier was trying to shake him. He hummed. Hunts required patience. “Are you warm enough?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

The bard shifted on the hard ground, made barely tolerable by the bed rolls, and pulled his knees up. “I can’t really feel my toes,” he admitted, in a small, sullen voice.

“ _ Jaskier. _ ” His tone chiding.

Geralt broke the seal of their warmed blankets and grabbed the coat from the folded bundle in the corner. He laid it over their legs and entwined their limbs before settling back and pressing close. Jaskier sighed, and Geralt lifted the metal collar around the candlelier to shut out most of the light. Eventually, he heard the bard’s breaths even out and, as the hours passed, started counting them.

He had broken something. And the knowledge pulled his skin too tight and left no room for sleep. If there was anything more empty than loneliness in solitude, it was loneliness in company.

  
  


The Midinváerne sky told a miserable tale. The temperature had dropped overnight, and they spent the morning stamping and clapping to get warm, breaths frosting in the cold. No sunrise greeted them. The thick clouds simply got more visible, the horses easier to see. 

Wariness dug like claws into Geralt’s shoulders as they continued their journey, and he glared at the horizon with dread. 

“We’re riding into a storm,” he said eventually, doubt pulling at his stomach.

“Yeah,” Jaskier replied. “But what choice do we have?”

Geralt said nothing as he pulled Roach to a stop and twisted in the saddle. Novigrad lay a day behind them, though he could no longer see the spires. He faced forward again, thinking, as Jaskier steered his horse closer. 

“Is there a town nearby?”

Geralt grunted, his mouth pulling into a sour line. “Nearby, no. Between here and Tridam there’s a crossroads village, Nevais.”

“Can we beat the storm?”

Geralt lifted his gaze to the clouds and a wall of white obscuring the distant mountains. He didn’t know. The cloud cover hid any storm front, and he couldn’t tell how fast it was moving. Just that the temperature kept dropping, quickly and well into freezing, stirring a tickle of fear. 

“I don’t know.”

“And if we go back? Would we beat it then?”

“I don’t  _ know _ .”

“Well”--Jaskier turned Arcaibh north--”we can’t just sit here. And it’s just snow! We’ll be fine in a little snow.”

In a  _ little  _ snow, they might have been.

The blizzard came on a howl of wind. A few falling flakes were quickly overtaken by a wall of white. Geralt pulled up his hood, his mouth pressed to a grim line as visibility shrank to nothing. He beckoned the bard closer, so as not to lose him, and Jaskier complied, hunkered in the saddle, his cloak barely a match for the deepening freeze. It whipped in the gale, letting in the cold, and Geralt watched his companion curl and tuck, trying to hide from the worst of it. Holding his hood down and not loosening his grip on the reins. 

Worry ate at Geralt’s chest. A witcher might survive, but a human… They couldn't stay out in this. 

“We should stop,” he said, raising his voice over the wind and scanning doubtfully around them as the horses trudged on.

“Stop  _ where _ ?” The bard shouted and gestured with one hand to the vast expanse of snow-coated fields that lay, presumably, on either side of the road. 

The snow muffled everything. Shrank the world to the sound of creaking leather and squelching snow under the horse’s hooves.

“Doesn’t matter! You can’t stay out in a blizzard. You’ll freeze!”

Jaskier lifted one shoulder and muttered to himself. “And be just another burden? Wasting your time?”

Geralt shot him a sharp look, obscured by his hood. “What?” A growl. “Why are you acting like this?”

In reply, Jaskier spurred his horse ahead, putting several lengths between them. Anger boiled in the witcher’s throat, and he glowered, but said nothing. Gave the man space if that’s what he wanted. At least his cloak stood out in the squall. 

The blizzard… got worse. Colder. The snow lighter and more powdery, whipped to a constant froth in the air. It bit the skin, and even Geralt felt the cold and wet seeping through his gloves. They lost the road under the accumulation and navigated by compass in the general direction of Nevais. 

“What is _ that _ ?” Jaskier said suddenly, his voice loud in the silence.

Geralt shifted the edge of his hood back and squinted in the direction of the bard’s raised arm. Everything was… white. White snow cover. White air. He only saw shadows and shapes. “...It looks like people,” he said.

“Yeah… but they aren’t moving. That’s weird--isn’t that weird?” Jaskier leaned forward in his saddle. “Why aren’t they moving?”

“I don’t know.” And the heavy feeling in his guts told him he didn’t want to. He frowned at the shapes.

And then Arcaibh burst forward, exploding into a canter. 

Geralt blinked. “Fuck.” And then spurred Roach on after the whipping flame of Jaskier’s cloak. 

The bard hopped down into the snow and approached one of the figures, standing tall among the other mounds. Geralt’s jaw clenched as Jaskier moved closer and bent forward for a look. Roach strode hard. The bard shrieked. Recoiled.

“Jaskier!” Geralt’s boots hit the ground, and he lunged through deep snow, a dagger coming instinctively into his hand as adrenaline  _ sang _ .

But the bard gestured, and he slowed, the knife drifting to his side as nothing moved. Geralt’s hood had fallen back in the rush, and he glanced at Jaskier’s face, at his stunned, horrified expression. Heard his heart racing and the deep bellows breathing of the horses. And he slid the dagger back into its sheath, slowly turning to the figure.

A woman.

She clutched her scarf closed over her chest with one hand, the other lifted, reaching. Snow collected on her hair and clothes and buried her to the knees. Dead eyes stared at nothing. Her clothes flapped in the wind around her frozen flesh. 

“That’s not possible,” Jaskier said, his voice tight.

Geralt moved closer, squinting at the fingers of her outstretched hand. They were perfect. No blue or black discoloration. Nothing about the shape looked like swelling. He pulled off a glove and touched her index finger. Not just cold… Colder than the snow, than the air. The witcher’s shoulders bunched as knots formed in his gut. 

Jaskier turned away with a scowl and started inspecting the other bodies. He dusted snow off a crouching man, nearly completely covered in a drift. He, too, stared at something. 

“Geralt…” A soft, broken sound. 

He turned to see Jaskier crouched in front of a thin figure and moved to the bard’s side. A girl, not quite a teenager, with a scarf tied around her neck clutched a bundle in her arms. Jaskier’s trembling fingers nudged back the fabric to reveal a small, frozen face. 

The bard’s expression hardened as he stood. 

“What did this?” he asked, his voice an obsidian blade.

“I don’t know.”

“Geralt, these people did not just freeze to death. No one freezes to death standing up! They pass out. They fall down!”

“I know!”

“Well?” Jaskier flung his arms out. 

“I. Don’t.  _ Know _ .” And the fear dropped his words like hammers.

The bard glared at him like he was holding back. Lying. And he stared in reply, shaking his head while dread dragged a bony finger down his spine. 

Jaskier broke first. “You really don’t,” he whispered, and turned to peer out into the wall of the snow, slowly turning. 

He really didn’t. And that was so much worse than knowing. Geralt listened hard for any suggestion of threat and turned back to the frozen woman. Colder than the freezing air. He considered for a moment, then gripped the woman’s finger and tugged.

It snapped off easily, and Jaskier let out a howl.

“What did you do!”

Geralt peered at the digit and the break. “Frozen completely through,” he said.

_ “Geralt!” _

“What?” He glanced up, irritation sharpened by dread.

“These… are  _ people _ !” Jaskier gestured to the other shapes in the snow around them. 

The witcher grimaced. “Not anymore.”

Geralt turned back to the standing woman and let the digit fall to the ground. He frowned, thinking. Frozen solid…

Jaskier made an unhappy sound, turning in place as though he expected something to leap from the snow. After a moment’s tense searching and silence, Jaskier turned back to him.

“We’ll bring something of theirs to town with us,” he declared.

Geralt scowled. “What? Why?” They were wasting time.

“Because they were headed for Nevais.”

“What does that matter?”

“For Yule, Geralt. Think.” The bard gestured at the family, frozen to statues. “Someone was waiting for them.” He pulled off a glove. “Pick something someone would recognize. A trinket, maybe. You’re breaking off fingers, look for one with a ring.”

He watched as Jaskier untied the scarf from the girl’s neck and eased the fabric off without touching her skin. When the bard turned, Geralt lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Someone  _ made  _ this,” Jaskier said, holding up the scarf. “A grandmother maybe. It’s the sort of thing family would recognize.” He ducked as a harsh wind blew his hood up over his head and turned from a blast of snow. The wind dragged at his cloak, and he stumbled, falling to his knees, disappearing into the drift around the frozen man’s crouched form. 

Geralt bit back another shout and watched as the bard struggled to his feet and began inspecting the man for a personal effect worth bringing. 

He might die out here. 

The worry plunged sharp as an awl in the witcher’s chest, boring a hole in which a thousand dread thoughts nested. He cut a look at the frozen woman. As if the blizzard wasn’t dangerous enough…

Something more tangible than fear inhabited the longest night. 

The woman did, indeed, have a ring. Geralt studied the curved set of her fingers and grimaced. Took hold of the one with the ring, and pulled it back, wincing when it cracked. 

“Sorry,” he whispered, hunching against the weather as he extracted the ring and turned to find Jaskier rummaging through a satchel slung at the man’s side. 

“Just take it!” he called, and the bard jerked to look at him. “The whole thing, just take it!”

“It’s stuck!”

With an annoyed growl, the witcher stomped through the snow, drew his dagger, and sawed through the strap with a few quick motions. They stuffed the belongings in the empty firewood sack tied to Arcaibh’s saddle and remounted. Geralt nudged Roach closer to the gelding’s side, and with a swift dart snatched the reins from Jaskier’s fingers. 

“Hey!”

“It’s getting darker. I don’t want you getting lost.”

He ignored Jaskier's petulant expression as he twisted to tie the reins to his saddle, and then pulled his hood up and shielded his compass close in both hands. Roach stamped impatiently, and at last he let her move. 

They might have been going in circles, for all they could see. By degrees, the yuletide cowl settled over the land, and the snow and the cold deepened. Jaskier held his cloak closed with both hands, bent so his hood touched his chest. He swayed with the motion of the horse, and Geralt spoke every so often just to elicit a reply. They should ride together, he thought. He should give Jaskier the fur, at least. But if they rode together, they could both have the cloak. It was a reasonable plan. Geralt did not know how to make Jaskier agree to it. Surely he couldn’t be more prideful than he was miserable. His clothes had to be soaked from the snow, and his skin a step closer to frostbite.

The air turned to blades. 

And they found another victim. Stumbled upon the lone figure in the grey like muddy moonlight. Geralt went alone, claiming a hat and cloak for their grim collection. He made Jaskier put the second cloak on, with a promise that they weren’t going to keep it. They passed more. A stochastic colonnade, and each time he chose something of personal value for the sack.

Geralt was a man of fortitude, not faith. No gods would deliver them from the claws of frost and fiends. Yet every man in the trembling dark harbored a prayer. The very essence driving The Longest Night feast. That struggling light shall endure. That the wheel shall turn. That after pain comes peace.

He did not pray. But he held the words on the back of his tongue.

And darkness, eventually, pulled back a curtain, revealing a faint orange glow. 

Geralt sat up straighter, his pulse quickening as the light took form. A square. A  _ window _ .

_ Goddess. _

Nevais.


	2. Chapter 2

A blast of wind and snow burst into the tavern as Geralt shoved the door open and stepped inside, the sack of pilfered belongings in one hand and the flaps of his coat slapping from the gale. Ice clung to the fur ruff of his hood and the trim near his boots. The witcher stamped and shook like a great beast, flinging melting snow to the loud annoyance of those nearby. Behind him, Jaskier slammed the door shut and leaned heavily against it, shaking, his lute case dragging on the floor.

Around them, The Longest Night feast bubbled. Boiling voices, roaring fires in several hearths, tables laden with meats and sweet, steaming drinks. Laughter in every corner. Card games. The interior of the tavern hung heavy with evergreen boughs and burgundy bows. Candles shaped like pinecones burned on every table, and the cloying air was thick with fir and cinnamon.

Jaskier wavered back to his feet and lurched in the direction of the bar. Some place to sit. Geralt caught him under the arm and guided him. Stripped off the extra cloak and pushed back the bard’s hood to get a look at him. 

“I’m fine.” Jaskier shoved his gloved hand aside, and the witcher turned away with his lips pressed tight. 

No one paid much attention after their abrupt entrance, save the barman who slid a mug of something hot and a broken piece of wafer in front of Jaskier with a cautious nod. The bard removed his gloves and carefully wrapped red fingers around the cup, hissing at the contact. Geralt’s stomach gripped--Jaskier’s hands were his livelihood--and he set the sack on the bar, then stripped off his own gloves--his hands not nearly as close to frostbite. He scanned the crowd from the shadow of his hood, searching for a locking gaze. Surely  _ someone _ cared that unannounced strangers appeared from the depths of a blizzard.

But no one volunteered their interest.

He took a breath. “Is there an alderman here?”

A few glances turned his way and unsure frowns, but the chatter rolled on.

Geralt pressed his lips to a thin line, then hefted his hatchet from his belt. He flipped it over and hammered the haft and blade against the bar.

“Is there”--he shouted--”an alderman here!”

The chatter cut to silence, and all eyes turned his way as he stood, axe in hand, swords spearing the air over his shoulder, water dripping down the fine green leather. A middle-aged man, young for an alderman, detached himself from a clutch of people near the largest hearth and raised his hand as he wound his way closer.

Geralt slid the hatchet back into its sheath, and as the man came into speaking distance, pushed his hood back, revealing disheveled ashen hair and amber eyes. 

“Alderman,” he said, with an incline of his head. “I’m--”

“I know who you are,” the man said, gesturing at him. “White hair. Gold eyes... Geralt of Rivia.” His gaze flicked to the bard. “Master Jaskier.”

Jaskier saluted weakly with his mug. 

“You’re welcome to the Nevais feast,” the alderman went on with a sweep of his hand, “but I’m afraid we have no work for you.”

“Thank you,” Geralt nodded his head once. “And I’m not sure that’s true.” He cast a look out at the very quiet, curious audience and lowered his voice. “We came through the blizzard and found several bodies.”

The alderman’s expression darkened, and he scratched at his scruff of a beard. “People die in blizzards,” he said, hedging.

“That’s true. But not usually still standing.” Geralt picked up the sack and fished out the first young girl’s scarf and set it on the bar. 

While he dug for the satchel and ring, the alderman picked up the scarf and lifted it up over his head as he turned to the room. 

“Does anyone recognize--” A stool scraped against the floor, cutting him off, and a dark haired woman shoved her way forward.

“My… my niece has a scarf like that.” Her fingers edged toward it, and then she glanced at the other items Geralt had laid out. The ring sat atop the leather satchel. “And…” Her eyes grew wider, face paler. “My sister… They’re late. They--” She picked up the ring in trembling fingers and rounded on Geralt. “Where did you get this?” her voice venomous.

“Beathag…” The alderman said in that tone men used on women about to make a scene. 

Geralt met her gaze. “Something… happened on the road. In the storm.”

Tears had already sprung to her eyes. Her cheeks flush with anger. Her hand closed in a fist around the ring, and he watched the knowledge unfurl itself inside her, catching flame. 

“You come here... to our hearth!” Her body shook. “Our Yule fire! With this!” She chucked the ring at him. “For what!”

“We thought their family would want to know,” he said gently, face screwed in sorrow. Jaskier had said the family would want to know… Geralt slid him a look that--

Beathag screamed. Roared and wailed a throat-rending cry of outrage and horror and flung herself at him. She slapped Geralt hard across the face, and beat her fists against his chest. Rapid, wild strikes. Cries of denial. He turned his face away and let her rage, cheek still stinging as she descended into sobs. Struck him with both fists at once.

Jaskier came to his feet, but the alderman caught her arms, and a burly man with a glassy look in his red-rimmed eyes grabbed her around the waist. He hauled her away casting a look both confused and accusatory that Geralt could not quite meet.

The tavern held its breath. Cups scraped on tables. 

The alderman wiped a hand slowly down his face, holding it over his mouth while sobs grew muffled in the direction of a back room. A door clicked loudly shut. 

He dropped his hand.

“This… happening on the road,” the alderman said. “Is it your sort of thing, witcher?”

“Yes.” 

The man swallowed and cast a glance around the silent tavern. “What is it?”

The witcher followed his gaze, watching many faces find sudden interest in their drinks. “I don’t know,” he said, a little louder than necessary. “But I’m going back to find out.”

“You’re  _ what _ ?”

Jaskier jerked on his arm and pulled him close.

“The blizzard almost got us the first time!” he hissed, his words for Geralt alone.

“You’re staying here,” the witcher replied evenly.

Jaskier scowled at him. “There’s not even a contract! Are they paying?”

The alderman cleared his throat--a kindness to indicate he could, in fact, hear them. Jaskier looked abashed, and Geralt leveled a chiding look at him. He peeled the bard’s fingers from his arm and turned, lifting his voice.

“Consider it a gift. For… ruining the feast.”

“Room and board would be nice, though?” Jaskier chimed, adding his most charming smile. 

A silent look passed between the alderman and bartender speaking volumes, and the alderman glanced back at them with a nod. Geralt extended his hand to seal the deal. 

“Back to your drinks, everyone!” the alderman called as he turned to the room. “The witcher’s got it handled!”

Jaskier stepped closer,forming a huddle with just the three of them, and whatever the barman might overhear. 

“Alderman…” Geralt dropped his voice low. “You can’t let anyone leave.” Geralt stared into the man’s eyes until he saw a flutter of fear and then eased off.

“Not--not even to their homes?” the man whispered.

Geralt shook his head faintly. “It’s the longest, darkest night of the year. A predator’s night. It would be best if whatever was moving out there wasn’t one of your people.”

The alderman paled. The barman stopped pretending to clean a glass, and they looked at one another until the alderman broke the gaze with a hard swallow.

“Music might be a good distraction,” Geralt offered, sliding a look to his companion. 

Jaskier nodded and looked down as he flexed his fingers. “I could use a little warming up still, but… yeah, that can be arranged.”

The witcher lifted the sack from where he’d let it slide to the floor and pressed it into the alderman’s hands. 

“The rest of what we found,” he said, voice low.

The man stared down at it.

“I might… wait?” Jaskier offered. He eyed the townspeople murmuring into their drinks, cowed by the special caution that comes from witnessing a tragedy not your own. “Let them have this night.” His gaze dropped to the sack. “The news won’t be any different tomorrow.”

The alderman nodded, a jerky, bewildered motion, and moved away from them, the barman moving quickly to his side and leaning in, his hands moving in animated gestures.

Geralt turned and found Jaskier standing in his way, a look of concern marring the lines of his face. 

“Are you sure this is wise? The weather outside is frightful.”

The witcher offered him a half smile. “I can stand the cold.”

“I’m not talking about the blizzard. Those people were frozen solid. Instantly, by the look of them. I don’t think a warm coat is going to be enough.”

Geralt’s expression twitched in acknowledgment. It wasn’t. The potion he intended to take  _ also  _ wasn’t. But he had no doubt this  _ was  _ his sort of problem, and leaving it to shepherds and bakers would only multiply their sorrows. He set a hand on Jaskier’s shoulder and stepped around him. 

“Find out which room. I’ll get our things.”

Tormod, owner, proprietor, and brewer, gave them the room farthest from the main hall, where it would be most quiet. Neither questioned the choice, and Geralt wondered if it fell on the side of putting them out of mind or giving a witcher’s senses some peace. Perhaps something else entirely. 

Jaskier stoked a fire in the fireplace, while Geralt lit candles on the mirrored wall sconces. The room wasn’t cold, exactly, due to the main hearth and radiant masonry, but far from comfortable. With enough light to see by, the witcher opened his potion bag and picked through the vials and bottles of brews he kept on hand. Two suggested themselves. A vial of Cat to see better in the dark, even if all he could see was snow. And the flat, squared bottle of Hummingbird. 

Geralt weighed the bottle in his hand. Weighed the risks. A quickened metabolism meant a higher body temperature. A greater resistance to cold. But also blood sugar crashes, catabolysis, and possible death if the effect lasted too long. He eyed the shimmering liquid, that looked by turns gold, blue, and purple as the light hit it, and lifted the bottle to the light to check the level of the contents. 

The fireplace crackled with a sudden flare, and Jaskier stood, dusting off his hands. He added a few small pieces of wood, gauging their effect. Then glanced over, his gaze settling on the bottle in Geralt’s hand. His mouth tightened. Not reproach. Just… with the knowledge that potions all had a price. 

“Which one is that?” he asked, straining for casual. 

“Hummingbird.” The bard’s head tipped to the side in question. “I don’t use it much,” Geralt added. “Not really useful outside winter.”

A slow nod. “Is there anything I should know?”

Geralt offered him a tight smile. “I might be hungry.”

He might be  _ ravenous _ . 

He peered at the level of the potion in the bottle once more, steeled himself, and then drank slightly more than half. The Hummingbird flowed like maple syrup, sweet, thick, and coating. It tasted like berbercane and stung his mouth like bees. It hurt to drink. Hurt to swallow. Fire scorched his tongue with the relentless agony of a scorpion pepper. Scraped his throat, so even the touch of exhaled breath brought a new wave of pain. 

His eyes watered as he coughed, held his mouth open like breathing fire, and tried not to drool like a madman. The burning churned his stomach, and he pressed a hand to himself as if to steady the organs in revolt. His guts gurgled audibly, and his face screwed shut.

_ Pant. _

Controlled breathing.

_ Pant. _

He would keep this down. 

And after a second, a wave of heat flashed through his body. It felt like sickness. Like nervous energy. An inability to sit still. His breathing quickened and heart thundered, and the backs of his knees felt damp with sweat.

He straightened, clearing his throat,and gave Jaskier’s silent concern a slight nod.

One down.

Geralt closed his hand around the vial of Cat and turned for the door. He paused on the precipice to give Jaskier a chance to grab his lute but did not look back. As they entered the main hall, the alderman gave him a long look and a nod of acknowledgment as he passed. The barman made a gesture, something that looked like a prayer and tying a knot in the air. The witcher took it as a blessing and dipped his head and never slowed. Gasps and muttering spread through the room as everyone caught a glimpse of the monstrous witcher with skin like snow and coal for eyes. Black veins like cracks across his face. They would look, and they would turn away. Jaskier’s footsteps carried him elsewhere, out of Geralt’s wake and toward the center of the room, where he could command attention. By the time the witcher stood at the door, his hand on the knob, he was alone, as invisible as if worked by magic. 

He pulled up his hood and felt his heart unnaturally quick in his chest. 

And then he stepped out into the blizzard night as Jaskier strummed a chord. 

Free of the lights inside, Geralt uncorked the vial of Cat and tossed it back. Unlike most concoctions, Cat went down easy, tasting mostly like cherry, allspice, and moonshine. It was really only the mandrake that would kill you. Kill  _ humans _ . 

Geralt replaced the cork and stashed the vial, squeezing his eyes shut while he waited. Several heartbeats passed while his body itched to move from the Hummingbird, and then his eyes burned as though blasted with dust. He blinked rapidly to work up tears, and then the sensation faded, and he gazed out at the storm. The hulking façades of buildings loomed beyond whirls of snow, their outlines visible to him now in a way they hadn’t been on the journey in. 

He pulled his gloves from his belt and slid them on. Watched his breath form a bright cloud as it left the warm confines of his hood. And took high steps out into the deep snow. Wind buffeted him from every side, and he held his hood down with one hand as he searched for the footprints they’d left and followed what remained of the tracks back out of town. 

The fresh snowfall and drifts had mostly filled in the trail, but he could see a disruption to the pattern of the landscape, like eddies in a lake. Snow crunched with each step. Too dry to pack, it flowed like sand to fill the empty places. Each inhale brought the sharp sensation of the hairs in his nose freezing. 

But the Hummingbird did its job, and his body felt warm to the fingers despite the reminders of deadly cold. 

Every few paces he stopped to scan for movement and held his breath and listened. The wind howled. Snow crept up his sleeves. And he soldiered on, laboring down the road where so many had died already. 

The cry, when it came, pierced him instantly. He jerked his head up. Squinted into the falling snow. And again, a faint, distant wail. Unmistakable.

A baby.

The witcher’s eyes narrowed, and he twisted in place, as the sound seemed to come from every direction. It grew louder. Fussier, into that demanding infant caterwaul of absolute desolation.

And in the corner of his vision, a shape moved. 

Geralt turned very slowly toward it, with a hunter’s easy grace. It had the shape of a woman. Thin shoulders. A long red cloak. The shape of a skirt visible beneath. She glided through the snow, her feet and skirt disappearing into nothingness. She was hunched against the weather, though the gale winds found no purchase on her. And as Geralt watched, with the sound of a baby’s cries loud in his ears, the woman stumbled and fell to her knees. 

Geralt moved in her direction, conscious that _ she _ had found  _ him _ and not the other way around. As he neared, the sound of sobbing rose above the wind, preternaturally loud, echoing in the open, empty space. It was the essence of devastation, a primal and piercing sorrow. It drew him closer, concern welling on instinct. Geralt felt his emotions stir as though tuned to a bard’s lament. Guilt curled through him like candle smoke, and the medallion resting against his chest thrummed in reply. 

He knew what she was, then. 

Geralt pressed a hand over the medallion to focus his mind on physical sensation and paced around her kneeling form, the cloak pooled on the snow around her like blood. A restless spirit of winter.

A snow woman. 

“Please…” she said, rocking slowly, her voice melodious and pitiful. “Will you help me?” She sniffled. Hunched over a bundle in her arms. A baby’s cry emanated from somewhere not quite right.

The witcher gave her a wide berth, watching how the snow failed to gather on her form. Her words tugged at him, urged him to say yes. 

“Please.” She sobbed again. “Please…”

Geralt scowled and tried to shake off the muddy feeling in his thoughts. 

“How?” he asked.

“My baby…” The snow woman rocked, her face hidden by her hood. “She’s so cold. Will you take her?  _ Please _ , please take her.”

More infant wails of distress sliced the air, but Geralt heard no heartbeats and saw no fogged breaths. He gauged the distance between them and slowly moved the fingers of his left hand into the sign of Yrden. 

“I can try,” he said, and knelt. He pressed his left hand through the snow until he touched the earth. “Let me see.”

The spirit’s rocking ceased abruptly. Her sobs went silent. Geralt coiled his limbs. 

He released the spell without a sound, and the spirit’s head jerked up. Stung, slapped by the rush of magic, her hood fell back. A skull’s eye sockets stared back at him, the sucking emptiness betraying shock. The knit of her brows, anger. Pale cheeks. Blue lips. She shrieked in ear-splitting discord and then dropped her jaw open too wide, pulling in a breath.

Geralt dove to the side. Deep snow padded his landing but slowed his motion. He cleared the edge of the magical cage, but the snow woman exhaled an icy blast of breath like dragon’s fire. It caught the trim of his hood as he came up to standing, and the fur broke off into tiny needles. 

Igni came by reflex to his hand, and he threw a blast of it back toward her. 

The fire roared through her image, and she flickered in and out of being while the snow around her melted. 

She shrieked at him, staggering to standing.

“Won’t! You! Help! Me!” she shouted. “Help me.  _ Help me! _ ”

The snow woman hurled herself at the Yrden barrier. Slammed into it, and fell to the ground. 

“We have nothing!” she wailed, and pulled the inert bundle in her arms to her chest. “Can you help?” She pressed a hand to the invisible wall of the cage. “Please help my baby,” she said, sounding for a moment like a human woman, before her voice turned to an eldritch symphony. “My baaaaaaaaaby....”

The sound scratched down Geralt’s spine, and he winced as it sparked pain across his nerves. Sweat gathered at his joints, and he felt his heart racing too much. Too much. 

The spirit thrashed, clawing and beating at the spell. “Baby. Baby. BABY!” And the harmonics of her voice grew worse, more painful.

Geralt winced at the assault on his senses and felt a headache throb into being. 

“Do you have a name?” he shouted over the litany of that word. Baby, baby, the sounds losing all meaning as they melted into an animal’s cry. 

The snow woman’s voice spun out into threads of sound and twisted together into a moan like the very storm itself. She ran out of breath and hung her head.

Geralt pressed his lips together and crouched, coming to eye level.

“Does your baby have a name?” he tried. 

The spirit lifted her head and stared at him with her skeletal, empty gaze. Her head cocked to one side, and she regarded him with the stillness of a frozen lake, a perfect surface poised to crack. 

Geralt swallowed. “Your baby,” he said, slowly. “Does she have a name?”

Her head cocked the other way, an animal’s gesture of query. She had no eyes to blink. But then her chin dropped in staccato, until she was gazing at the child in her arms.

“Raonaid,” she said. 

Her body shuddered, the skeletal features flickering like shadows from firelight until a human visage took hold. 

“So cold,” she said, her voice cracking on the word. “Can you help?” She met the witcher’s gaze.

Pain lanced behind Geralt’s eyes. “Maybe,” he said, pushing to his feet. “I’ll try.”

He kept his distance from the caged spirit and eyed her as he slogged through the snow. She turned to watch him, pressing a hand against the barrier. She did not get up. And did not try another blast of freezing breath. 

When he finally looked away, searching for the lights of Nevais, the baby’s cries lifted through the air again, haunting his way back. 

***

Sweat soaked through Geralt’s smallclothes, shirt, and breeches. He held the hood down against the wind and snow, checking every few steps that the lights from the windows remained ahead. And he stomped through deep snow drifts.

Then stumbled. 

The ground seemed to grow uneven and his limbs heavier than they should be. He swayed, blinking fiercely, and clenched his jaw as he staggered on. He was close. Had to be close, he could see the lights so clearly. But the pain stabbed at his brain. Ached at the base of his skull. He blinked and could not tell the snow from the stars.

But the windows. The windows were yellow. Like fire. Like warmth. 

He tripped on something. Fell. And it hurt wrong. Not like dirt or cuts. On his face. Hurt his face. Like… like… burning. Good relief burning. Snow. Face first in the snow. 

He struggled to his feet and wavered, peering around for the buildings and the lights and the tavern. The potion would let him see. Let him find it. Fire. Home. He lurched into motion and concentrated on stepping without falling while the pain spread through his body, seeking his joints. Knees. Fingers. 

Geralt collided heavily with a door that he hoped was the tavern’s. He fought to grip the knob to open the door with weak, shaking hands. Used both of them to accomplish his task, and stumbled into a wall of heat and sound and smells. He felt his gorge rise under the attack, and waves of hot cold flashes coursed over his skin. He stood, shaking, squinting as the Cat made the light too bright and the images too wrong.

And then, it started to darken. Blissfully. 

“Geralt?” A familiar voice. The bard’s voice. 

He tried to move, and something jolting happened, leaving him much closer to the floor. 

“Oh, fuck. Fuck!” Jaskier’s voice was suddenly high and loud. “Move!”

A commotion. Pounding. The snow woman. He knew about the snow woman.

Jaskier appeared at his side, sliding himself beneath an arm. Geralt tried to look at him. To tell him. The woman.

“Help me!” the bard barked and gestured, and the barman was suddenly in Geralt’s space taking his other arm. 

And then it was very, very dark inside for a tavern.

***

Icy wind flayed Geralt’s cheeks, and he hugged himself against the cold. His armor was no bulwark against this, and he felt soaked to the core. Melted snow plastered his hair and ran under his collar. The flakes snuck in between crevices, turning his shirt and breeches into liabilities, wicking away precious heat. 

Witchers had no immunity to the weather. And their slow hearts did them no favors. 

She was out here. He knew that even as he slogged through the snow, peering out at a sheet of white nothingness. She was out here. She needed him. He had to find her. To see her. 

He walked. And walked. And did not count the time nor his steps. He buried his hands in his armpits for warmth and walked. There was no horizon, no landmarks, no moon. 

Endless bitter cold and no respite. 

Geralt did not expect despair to seize his throat, but he stopped, suddenly aching with it. Shook and tried to swallow.

A sob.

The sound startled him, and Geralt shuffled to turn, his boots scrunching loudly on the snow. 

She was there. Kneeling in the snow. A black ink spill of a cloak. 

The scent… enchanting. 

His knees went weak as lilac and gooseberries overtook his senses, and his heart beat a little faster. Yes…

“Yen?”

She held a swaddled bundle in both arms, and at the sound of his voice, looked up. Violet eyes pierced the witcher’s heart. Full of sorrow. Brimming with tears. She glanced back down at the unmoving form, and her whole body racked with a sob. The tears spilled, and the wind howled. 

And he knew…

That she’d wanted one.

That she’d lost one. 

That this agony was beyond him. And yet her tears, her tears… flayed him as sure as the biting gale. 

“Yen…” he said, voice tight, and reached out a hand. 

She batted him away. Her movements quick, violent. Unexpected fury. 

Her lips curled. She dropped the bundle. Lunged. Her eyes vanished into black pits. Face twisted to a skin-stretched skull.

Geralt caught her wrists and they fell back. Tumbled in the snow. 

“No. Stop! Yen!” 

She drew a breath.

Fear.

“Yen!”

  
  


Geralt ran. Blindly and through a blizzard, but he ran. Of all the stupid… Useless and stupid. Careless. 

He stopped and turned in place, searching. His heart beat wildly. The snowfall obscured everything. No tracks. No scents. 

He was… Too late. Too slow. 

He cursed and started to run again, hope dropping like the temperature. And a form rose dimly on the short horizon. He moved faster. Then… then slowed. 

And for an endless moment all he could do was stare, while his insides flipped. While a vice squeezed the air from his chest. 

No…

He tipped his head to the side, fighting a rictus of grief. 

Too late…

The witcher’s slow, deliberate steps brought him to the side of a frozen figure. Jaskier, in his red-gold doublet, down on one knee. Geralt stared at him, and neither of them breathed. 

He crouched, gaze sweeping over the bard’s hands, both turned and stretched, reaching to receive. The bard’s eyes, blue and beautiful and frozen. A look of earnest concern on his dead expression.

Geralt’s eyes fell shut, and he bowed his head. His breath came unsteady, broken, as sorrow carved out a hollow space and guilt seeped like ice into his blood. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

He forced himself to look at this monument to his failure and reached out a hand. Fingers shaking, he touched the hair at Jaskier’s temple, and the strands broke off with a small crackle. Then a crack like deep shifting ice split the air.

And Jaskier shattered.

  
  


Geralt jolted to consciousness with a strangled grunt. His heart thundered, and his gaze flicked around in trembling panic. He was in a dim room. The Cat still circled his blood, casting the gray light coming in through the window into strange shades.

“Jaskier?” he called. The vision still fresh. Dead. Frozen. Breaking. 

A dream? A memory?

Fear closed fingers around his throat as he tried to remember. 

The blizzard was real… the blizzard was real. 

The base of his skull throbbed with his pulse. It  _ felt _ like a memory. The chill of the wind. The darkness. The dread in the moment that he  _ knew _ …

The witcher pushed up onto his elbows with effort and his gaze drifted around the empty room.

“Julek…” he breathed. A small sound. Unsure. 

The door opened suddenly, and Geralt startled. Stared and sagged with an audible sigh as the bard walked in carrying a large mug smelling of nutmeg and vanilla. Geralt pressed a hand over his mouth and dropped back onto the bed, frothed with exhaustion. His breathing came in quick, heavy pants.

“Oh, goddess… about time,” Jaskier said, hurrying over. He set the mug on the nightstand and perched on the edge of the bed, concern furrowing his brow. “Geralt?”

The witcher stared at him, despair unspooling into relief. 

_ Not _ a memory.

Mad laughter caught in his throat, and he sighed hard instead. Reached unsteady fingers for his companion’s face. Tugged him close while the echoes of panic and laughter ebbed. And held him, foreheads touching, until his breathing calmed. 

“Hey…” Jaskier whispered, his fingers light. Soothing. “Shh…” 

He didn’t ask questions, and Geralt would have felt stupid answering them. Instead he inhaled the steadying scent of mint and lavender soap, musk and wine. Eventually, Geralt let him go, and Jaskier sat up, sweeping him with an evaluative look. 

“Are you hungry?” the bard asked. 

Geralt’s stomach rumbled in reply, an excessively long and expressive sound that earned a snort of amusement. He glanced down at himself and truly registered his state for the first time.

“Why am I naked?”

“Ah. Well. We put you in a tub of snow. You stumbled in combusting of a fever, and”--Jaskier’s voice grew small--”started having seizures.”

Geralt scowled and compressed his lips. High fever could lead to seizures and delirium. Too much Hummingbird. 

“Sorry,” he said, cursing his stupidity.

Jaskier scrutinized him a moment more then looked away and plucked something from a plate on the side table. He held out a small cake, and Geralt scented the air as he pressed up onto his elbows again. 

Wheat, butter, sugar, cinnamon, rum. He took the offering, a round bun thick with icing, and lifted an eyebrow wordlessly at his companion as he took a bite.

“Raisin rum bannock,” Jaskier supplied. “Local delicacy.” 

Geralt barely tasted it as he wolfed it down. Hungry? No.  _ Starving. _

Jaskier picked up the large mug and held that out next. “The alderman saved some spiced nog for you.”

This was the source of the vanilla and nutmeg. Geralt shifted onto his side to hold the mug. The mug steamed, and he took a tentative sip and rolled the creamy liquid over his tongue before swallowing. Rich. Dense. It tasted like luxury, and his hunger surged for more. He drank it without taking a breath, and then Jaskier swapped the empty mug with another bannock. 

Geralt got crumbs on himself. Didn’t care. And as he licked his fingers clean, he collapsed back onto the bed, heavy with fatigue. Jaskier brushed the crumbs from his chest hair like a good friend and frowned at him.

“How are you feeling?” the bard asked. 

He pressed a palm to Geralt’s forehead. Geralt shivered, and Jaskier’s frown deepened. He got up, fished an extra blanket from the dresser, and tossed it unceremoniously over the witcher’s body. 

Geralt’s lip curled, and he tried to kick them off.

“Hot,” he groused. 

The bard stopped trying to straighten the corners. 

“Your eyes are still black, you know.”

Geralt grunted in acknowledgment and gave up kicking at the blankets, his energy spent. “Cat hasn’t worn off yet. Everything looks… weird.”

“Glowing, am I?”

The witcher turned his black eyes on Jaskier and narrowed them. “A little.” He’d tried to explain it once or twice. It wasn’t like seeing by regular light. Hot objects cast a glow that bounced off cold ones, giving them shape. Some surfaces took on new colors that defied language to describe. 

“Yes,” he said, and let his eyes fall shut to block it out. His body ached, and flashes of heat moved across his skin, chased by chill. 

Jaskier’s weight dipped the bed. 

“How long was I out?” Geralt asked, not opening his eyes. The words rolled slowly off a tired tongue. 

“Several hours,” came the gentle reply. “It’s the day after Yule.” He took a breath. Scratched as his hair. “You stumbled in not long before dawn.”

The witcher made a sound to show he was paying attention.

“I was starting to think I might have to go looking.”

He opened his eyes then and fixed the bard with a look. 

“Sorry to worry you,” he said, fighting against a drowsy tide.

Jaskier snorted and looked away. “Comes with the job.”

“‘S a lousy job.”

A bark of laughter. “You’re telling me.”

“The storm?”

“Quite impossibly, still storming. The alderman’s kept mostly everyone in the tavern all night by getting them stupendously drunk. But… now it’s midday, and… as you might imagine, it’s becoming a bit of a teapot ready to boil over.” 

All those people confined, bored, and scared, if they had any sense. Weariness turned Geralt’s bones to iron, the bed to a lodestone. And yet… a bucket dropped into the well of him, clattering at the sides, and splashed. 

He forced his eyes open.

“I have to talk to them,” he said. 

Jaskier cocked his head. “Why? Did you find it?”

“Yes…” He moved the blanket aside, and the bard hopped to his feet.

“And?”

Geralt sat up slowly, as though a joint might dislodge. An ache throbbed through his skull. “It’s a snow woman,” he said after a labored moment. “A restless spirit.” His stomach growled again, and he glanced at the empty plate. “Are there more?”

Jaskier swept him with a serious look and then snatched up the plate. “Plenty. I’ll get a refill. Are you  _ sure _ you should be up?”

The witcher just looked at him, his silence an answer all its own.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought,” Jaskier muttered as he turned. 

He was halfway through the door when, “Jaskier.”

The bard turned. 

“Thank you,” Geralt managed, his voice breathier than he’d like.

“Oh.” Jask checked the empty plate. “Don’t thank me. I didn’t bake them.” 

And then he was gone, and Geralt’s heart squeezed at the parry. He took the time alone to shuffle himself out of bed and into his clothes, all laid out to dry by the fire. He shivered and felt sweat bead on his brow as he kept himself upright and steady. 

It was annoying. He wasn’t  _ ill _ . He didn’t have a  _ fever _ . Not exactly. Not like Jaskier got fevers. He had… Hummingbird hangover. When the potion faded, so would this. 

He tucked his shirt and laced his breeches and was contemplating socks and boots when the bard returned. Jaskier took in his state of dress with a skeptical eyebrow and a mouth too full of bannock to say anything. He offered the full plate with a grunt, and Geralt obliged.

These ones were warm. Perhaps fresh. The icing melting to sweet, buttery goo. Geralt might have made a sound of pleasure.

“Right?” Jaskier said.

And they polished off the plate together, licking sticky fingers clean. The weariness in Geralt’s limbs ebbed, the fatigue not quite so heavy, even as chills still made him shiver. He finished dressing and pulled on the basilisk coat. Made a quick pass at his hair to pull it back and make himself slightly presentable. Nothing to do about the eyes. 

“Very intimidating,” Jaskier offered, and Geralt peered at him in the mirror, mouth twisting into a smirk. 

He let Jaskier go first and came laboring down the stairs behind him into the main hall. Sight and sound punched through him, and he closed his eyes for a moment to adjust to one, and then the other. Humans were loud. Their habitations stank. And the body heat, the fire... the candles, warm food, warm drinks, and light through the many windows… the Cat potion warped it all into shook sunlight on a rippling pond. Unnatural dapples and refractions of uncolor that made his stomach clench just a little. 

Tormod the barman looked up at him and did not flinch when their gazes connected. Instead, he returned a slow nod and set a mug on the bar, checked that Geralt was still watching, and pointedly filling it with steaming tea. Geralt frowned a little, curious, and inclined his head. 

Whispers of the “the witcher, the witcher” sliced around the room, bringing the gabbling to a simmer. And Geralt moved his inky, unnatural gaze across still and shocked faces. Jaskier found his way to the alderman’s elbow and spoke something Geralt couldn’t hear. 

For a moment, Geralt considered his options. Then he turned to the barman with an apologetic look and took two quick leaps, one onto a barstool and one onto the bar. He huffed from the exertion, grimacing at himself, and turned, stamping his heel as though calling a court to order.

The whispers fell silent. Discomfort flitted through him at becoming the focus of attention. See the mutant; see the monster. This would be the image they carried of his kind: ashen hair, inhuman eyes, black veins stark against death-pale skin. The alderman pressed forward, but Geralt looked elsewhere, letting everyone have a chance to lock eyes with the beast. Fear may trip them into honesty, and he did not want to wait for answers.

“Does anyone here know of an infant named Raonaid?” he asked. 

Silence.

Glances exchanged like fireflies. 

Geralt frowned. “She’s dead, if it helps.”

A hand shot up then, and a dark-haired man stood. His gaze darted from the witcher to the alderman.

“Floireans had a baby named Raonaid,” he said, and lifted one shoulder. “Only one I can think of.”

Geralt bowed his head to the speaker and looked away, releasing the pressure of his gaze. He hooked one thumb under the strap across his chest. 

“And where’s Floireans?” He asked, as if he did not know.

He lifted his eyebrows at the alderman. Heard heartbeats around him quicken. But no one spoke, and the quality of their silence grew thick. Gazes dropped. Heads turned.

Geralt’s lip curled with sneer, and he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Your town is being haunted by a snow woman. If you want to keep losing family, fine by me.”

He took a step down onto a stool.

“She’s dead!” A woman’s voice.

Geralt froze, vindicated, then stepped back up and found the speaker by the circle of turned heads. She gave those around her sharp, quelling looks and pulled her arm from the grip of the man next to her.

“What? It’s true!” she hissed, smacking the offender. 

“What happened?” Geralt asked her.

“The storm. Last year,” she said, shaking her head. Her gaze dropped to the table top. “It was a bad year, witcher.”

Jaskier slid into the conversation, effortlessly drawing her attention. “What do you mean a bad year?”

The woman’s shoulders lifted, and she twined her fingers together with a constant, nervous energy. “Poor yields. Not much food to go around. We all were nearly starving.”

Murmurs and nods spread through the crowd. Jaskier shot the alderman a look, and the man nodded once. 

“She”--a bald man with a ginger mustache spoke suddenly from a table near the bar--”she came to my door.” His face contorted, and color flushed up his neck and across his cheeks. He laced his fingers and squeezed, but it did not keep a rush of tears from coming to his eyes. “Came asking for food,” he went on, voice thick. “And shelter.”

“On Yule?” Geralt asked.

The man nodded, staring at his hands.

“You turned her away.”

Statement. Accusation. 

The bald man’s composure cracked, and he blubbered, searching for his words. “I only had enough for family of my own!” he said, and pounded his clenched hands on the table. “It was a bad year!”

Geralt glowered but then turned his attention away while the man’s guilt boiled over.

“She was homeless?” he demanded of no one in particular. 

Someone muttered something, obscured by the bald man’s sniffling.

“Speak up!” Anger threaded into the witcher’s voice, and he scanned the crowd for a target.

“I said, she couldn’t pay her rent.” A man with long blond hair and a burgundy doublet spoke as he leaned against the wall near the central hearth. “I had to put her out.” 

Chairs shuffled as the crowd turned to look at him. He lifted his chin and glared back. “I had taxes to pay! The rooms aren’t charity!” He stabbed a finger at his own chest. “I had to eat, too!”

The story formed itself like a snowflake. The right conditions. The right shape for the making of a monster. Geralt felt his body grow tight, his throat so hot it closed. Pain rang through his skull while the fever raged. And in that moment, he hated them. 

“She came to our door,” a woman said suddenly. 

Geralt’s glare flicked to a heavy woman with black braids. A fine shawl with an intricately colored weave lay across her shoulders. Her bodice, too, displayed a detailed pattern for a simple shirt. A weaver, perhaps, advertising her wares.

“We…” the woman’s throaty voice drew out the sound, and she frowned. Picked at her own fingers, and then pressed them carefully down to stop. “It wasn't our problem,” she said finally.

Geralt snorted and shook his head, scouring the tavern with a glare, searching for all the eyes that wouldn’t meet his. 

“Well, now it is,” he said. “You let her die in a blizzard on the Longest Night and her spirit is seeking vengeance.”

The alderman moved closer. “But… you know what to do, right? You can get rid of her? Banish the spirit?”

Geralt speared him with an inky look, and then stepped down from the bar in two great strides. He paused to pick up the mug the barman had poured for him, the muscle in his jaw twitching. And then he turned away and headed for the stairs, the crowd parting before him. 

“Witcher?” the alderman called. “Can you get rid of it?” More desperate. “Witcher!”

  
  


Anger ran like poison in his veins. Geralt returned to their room, limbs heavy and shivering with chill. He set the tea down before he dropped it. Struggled to remove his scabbards, only worsening his mood, and tried very hard not to chuck his belt and hatchet at the floor as he got himself free. He sloughed off the coat and controlled himself enough to fold it over the back of a chair. 

Cool air assaulted him without the fur. No, cool _ er _ . He was sweating and shivering, and growled in frustration as he lowered himself carefully onto the sheepskin in front of the fire, the mug of elderflower tea gripped tightly. Jaskier had built the fire well, and its light and heat cast the room into a kaleidoscope of unnatural colors. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the feel of heat against his face. Tasted the tea. Light. Floral.

The door opened. 

The door closed.

“That umm…” Jaskier scratched. “Did not seem to help.”

A huff. The witcher concentrated on tactile sensations. The sheepskin fibers beneath his hand. The feel of the fire. The heavy mug. The way his ribs and throat ached to scream. The way his joints throbbed.

By sound, he followed the bard’s approach and adjusted to make space on the rug for him. When a hand touched Geralt’s forehead, his eyes flashed open. 

“What are we going to do?” Jaskier asked him seriously. 

He shrugged and watched the flames. Jaskier withdrew his hand.

“I don’t know,” he muttered. “Nothing maybe.”

“Nothing.” Jaskier adjusted his position and peered, sidelong. “Both know you’re terrible at that,” he said, his voice low and matter-of-fact.

Geralt’s jaw clenched, and he felt the ache of an old wound through him. He drank more of the tea, but the elderflower did not bury--it expressed. It burned through like a fever to purify and heal. And so it hit him hard in the chest, in the throat. The core of the anger. A heart of calcified fears and child’s nightmares. 

_ Abandoned. _ A human life forsaken, mutated into something more and less and worse.

The world’s detritus.

A town’s trash.

He pressed his lips together hard and fought the emotions back down. “They  _ earned _ this.”

The bard regarded him in silence for a moment, while the fire crackled and sap popped. “That’s cruel even for you,” he said at last. 

Geralt cut him a sharp look, stung. No,  _ annoyed _ . That he should be better. That he always had to be  _ better _ .

“They left her homeless and starving on the street to die in winter,” he ground out the words, showing teeth. “How  _ didn’t _ they earn it?” 

Jaskier’s eyes narrowed. “And how many whole families have to pay, do you think? What’s the proper cost?”

Geralt stared at him, and the poison in his blood cooled. He heaved a sigh, his lip curling as he turned back to the fire. A chill ran up his arms, and he shivered, then took another sip of tea.

“You’re still not recovered,” Jaskier said.

Geralt shook his head, staring into the flames. Too tired to sit on the floor. Too tired to get up. Jaskier got to his feet with a simple unwinding of limbs and offered his hand.

“C’mon,” he said. “More bed rest.”

Geralt gripped his hand, and it felt cool against his fevered skin. Strange. He was still considering it when Jaskier let him go, took the mug from his hand, and gave his shoulder a nudge to get him moving. The only things he stripped off were his boots before climbing under the covers.

Jaskier hadn’t moved and now stood by the fireplace staring at him. Concern lingered in his gaze, and his eyes looked dark in the low grey light. For a long moment he didn’t blink, and Geralt’s heart skipped with a flash of memory. The cold. The terror. The touch. Jaskier shattering, and a chasm punching open through Geralt’s chest into which horror and guilt and sorrow poured. Ever deeper. Never full. 

The bard blinked, and the spell broke. He carded his fingers through his hair and blew out a breath.

“I’m… uh… not really sure I want to go back out there,” he said, gesturing at the door and pressing a half-hearted smile to his face. 

Geralt regarded him seriously. “So don’t.”

Another moment of silence as Jaskier’s gaze fell to the empty side of the bed as he idly drank the rest of Geralt’s tea. Geralt felt the sharp edges of the empty space between them. They’d shared a bed hundreds of times. Been lovers when the itch struck. But the ease had gone from their silences. Their casual intimacy turned strained. Two days of it and his nerves had already frayed. 

He watched Jaskier hesitate and then decide to join him, though on top of the covers. Geralt let his eyes fall shut as the fatigue pulled at him. And he listened to the rhythm of Jaskier’s breathing and the beat of his heart, a little too rapid for rest. Nerves. Worse, though, was his stillness. Jaskier didn’t move. Jaskier  _ always _ moved. He touched, he brushed, he fidgeted. And the stranger at Geralt’s side did none of those things, instead maintaining careful control of his body and distance. 

“What’s wrong?” Geralt asked finally. 

“What? Nothing’s wrong.”

The witcher cracked his eyes open and peered over in silent skepticism. Jaskier sighed and trained his gaze resolutely on the ceiling. 

“The spirit is still out there, and you almost died,” he said.

“I didn’t.”

“You… looked very ill.”

Geralt shrugged. “You’ve seen worse.”

“That’s not the point.”

Frustration coiled in the witcher’s stomach. What  _ was _ the point? He didn’t understand, and yet something had broken between them. A wound bleeding on the inside. 

He considered for a moment and drew a hand out from the under the covers. Sometimes, when Jaskier had been left wanting too long, it turned him irritable. Geralt might be in no condition to be a good lover, but this was a thing he understood. He reached over and drew the backs of his fingers gently down Jaskier’s cheek. 

Jaskier pulled away, irritation in his expression, and Geralt’s heart ached at the rebuke. Not that then. 

The bard swallowed. “Do you know what I did while you were out hunting?”

Geralt burrowed back under the covers. 

“Carousing?”

“Yes.” Voice sharp. “Carousing. Playing. Singing. Carol and after carol about feasts and drink and the good times to come. About friends. About love. About good cheer carrying you through the dark. I kept them happy and laughing and sated while you were out there looking for the snow woman. I put on a smile that they would believe.”

Geralt grunted in acknowledgment. “It’s why they love you.”

Jaskier gave him a sharp, unreadable look, his pulse gone wild. And then he settled back into staring at the ceiling. “Yeah…” he said eventually, then rolled on his side to face the wall. 

The witcher stared at the back of his head, trying but too tired to think. He had done something, that he was sure of. But every remedy was too bitter, and Jaskier withdrew a little more. The coat, he thought to himself as he let sleep come. It was the coat, but he could make no more sense than that. 


	3. Chapter 3

He dreamt of crying babies. Jerked restlessly in his sleep, as his dream self wandered through endless blizzard and dark night. The eyeless face. Turning, shrieking. Sorrow and sinking pits. Of warmth. Of a door wreathed in holly.

_ “Help me!” _

And pounding. The holly door rattling.

_ “Help me!” _

A child wailing over the beating on the door, as it got louder. Louder. 

“Geralt!” 

The witcher started into waking and found Jaskier shoving hard at his arm. 

“Geralt!” 

Someone pounded on the door to their room.

“Witcher!” The voice of the alderman came muffled from the other side. “You have to do something! Witcher!”

Geralt threw off the covers and got up, his body light and graceful. No aches pulled at his joints. And it took him a moment to realize the Cat had worn off while he slept, too. Another round of pounding shook the door on its hinges, and Geralt pulled the door open before more shouting followed. 

The alderman stared at him with wide eyes and looked a little pale. “They’re leaving!” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the stairs. “I can’t keep them here! I tried!”

With a scowl, the witcher checked the windows over his shoulder and noted the falling snow and dim, dusk light. Jaskier appeared at his side and shoved him out of the way, lute case in hand.

“I’ll see if I can soothe the savage beast,” he said, with a quick pat on the alderman’s arm as he hurried. “Everyone!” he called ahead of himself. “Concert time! Who wants a song?”

For a moment, they both watched him go, and then the alderman turned to Geralt with a drawn, serious expression. 

“Tell me you can get rid of her,” the man said. “Of Floireans.”

Geralt let his hand drop from the door and turned away, leaving it open. He found his boots and ground his teeth. That was all he kept asking, all they wanted. Get rid of her. 

The alderman stood tense and hesitant. “Witcher?”

He donned the heavy coat, thinking more clearly now that the potions were done with him. 

“No,” he said eventually, drawing out the word. He fastened the buckles of the coat and glanced at the alderman’s shocked expression. “That’s the problem… That was your solution the first time, and it didn’t work.”

“What?” A walking fish might have looked less lost.

But the idea had already crystallized in Geralt’s mind, and he needed to go. To set things in motion. Swords and belt in place, he eased the bewildered alderman out of his path and hurried down into the main hall, following the sound of shouting. 

He found a glut of people surrounding the door, fists raised and shouting. Tormod, the barman, stood his ground in front of the exit, swinging a poker from the fireplace menacingly. Cries of “Let us out!”, “You can’t keep us here,” and “We want to go home” cascaded over one another. 

And then Jaskier jumped up onto a table and started to pick out a tune. A beautiful, sweeping melody resonated through the space, at odds with the fiery tempers. At first, only a few heads turned. But in turning, they saw Geralt coming down the stairs with the alderman at his heels. And that led to pointing and not a small bit of fear rising at his approach. 

Tormod lowered the poker as the crowd ebbed, and a great muttering rose around the tavern as annoyed, tired townsfolk spread themselves across every available surface. The alderman rushed by Geralt to the barman’s side, touched his arm, and nodded at the barman’s silent gestures. Geralt caught Jaskier’s eye and made his way over to him. 

Jaskier stepped down off the table, still playing, and Geralt gripped him on the shoulder, leaning in to whisper in his ear. Jaskier nodded, glancing around the room as he took in his instructions.

“You’re sure?” he asked, dubious. 

The witcher offered a tentative smile. “Not in the least. Remember, three knocks.”

“Right.”

And then Geralt turned to go.

“Uh, Geralt?” 

He glanced back.

“Potions?”

He shook his head. “Not after last time. I’ll be fine and… try to be quick.” And then he left, pulling up his hood as Tormod and his iron poker let him pass. 

  
  


It was, as Jaskier had said, impossibly still snowing. Worse, the snow was knee high. The stories Geralt knew said nothing about a snow woman’s haunting grounds. She might appear anywhere, a ghost twisted by grief and touched by the Cold Moon of the solstice. He suspected, however, that Floireans avoided the town on purpose. Maybe her bones were buried far afield. 

Maybe they hadn’t been buried at all. 

Fire could cleanse a haunting spirit from their earthly remains. Set them free. But even without the blanket of snow, finding them would have proved difficult.

The witcher oriented himself toward last night’s trek and raised a gloved hand. He made the sign of Aard and released the power in a broad arc. Snow exploded into the whipping wind and out of his path for several meters. He grinned. A silly, childish notion, really. But… it did go impressively far. 

He did it again. 

And in this way plowed a path out of town, the magic slowly tapping his strength. 

Without the Hummingbird to keep him burning hot, his fingers went icy cold, well on their way to numb. But he could still feel the magic of the sign well enough to cast and kept moving. 

“Floireans!” Geralt shouted into the gale, his voice quickly lost. 

A sign. A shout. He moved on, until at last he heard the unmistakable squawk of a crying baby. The witcher turned in the dying light of the day and caught sight of a red cloak moving through the deep snow.

“Floireans!” he called again, panting from the effort of channeling so much Chaos into magic. 

The spirit turned, and Geralt waited, forming his left hand into Yrden and checking to make sure his numb fingers had it right. He hoped he didn’t need it. The snow woman glided through the deep snow as though unaware of its presence. Her form melted into full view as she moved into the path Geralt had cleared. 

He took a step back, and she paused, her hood pulled low to hide her face. Her phantom baby cried, and she touched its face. 

“Will you help me?” the spirit asked in a very human voice. 

“Floireans?” Geralt asked. 

She jerked her head up, black pits for eyes staring into him. Her face flickered briefly. 

“I will help you,” Geralt went on. “Can you follow me?”

She cocked her head to the side, as though trying to understand, and then held out the bundle in her arms.

“Can you help my baby?”

For a moment, the fall of her hair looked like Yen. It sent a shock through his body. “Floireans, please follow me. I’ll help your baby.” 

Her face flickered again at the sound of her name, and he hoped it would be enough to nudge her out of her cycle of pain. The same words. The same request. The same death. 

Geralt took a few slow steps backward.

“Bring me Raonaid,” he said, and after a moment’s hesitation, Floireans came closer. 

“Help me…” she said, her voice dissolving into sobs that sent Geralt’s medallion to humming. 

“I’m going to. I promise. Follow me, Floireans. We’ll get you help.” He hoped. 

A few more steps back down the cleared path. A few more steps closer came the ghost. And so together they retraced Geralt’s steps, with promises and assurances like taming a feral dog. The witcher did not turn his back, and the snow woman did not try to freeze him solid… until the tavern came into view, and the spirit realized where they were going at least. 

“No…” she said, and pulled her baby closer. The pits of her eyes grew, overtaking more of her face. “No, you lied to me!” Her voice broke into harmonics. “You lied!”

“Floireans!” Geralt put up his hands even as she started to draw a breath. “Floireans, who do you think told me your name?” His heart thundered, muscles went tight. If he was wrong… he’d brought death to Nevais. He’d have seconds to drop, cast Yrden. Maybe reach his sword. The sign would make her vulnerable to silver.

“You said you would help!”

“I am! I am helping, these people”--he gestured to the tavern--”sent me to find you.”

She shook her head. “They don’t waaaaaant meeeeeeeee.” The tonal wail of her voice made him wince as fire shot through his nerves.

“Please! For Raonaid, please come to the tavern.”

She hesitated, but the consuming pits of her eyes receded. “My baby…” she said, her voice softening toward human. 

Geralt’s body unclenched and he backed up the rest of the way to the door, and Floireans moved closer, sobbing. He chanced glancing away to knock on the door hard three times, then turned his gaze back to the spirit. The knob turned, and light from the interior swept out, illuminating the snow.

“Geralt?” Jaskier’s voice sounded. 

And then a hand curled around his arm urged him inside. The snow woman stood just beyond the threshold, scanning the crowd gathered around the doorway with her skeletal gaze. Geralt pulled back his hood and exchanged a look with the bard of lifted eyebrows and solemn nods. 

The hall held the silence of an inhaled breath. And the ghost turned to the witcher.

“Will you help me?”

“I’ll help you,” a man--not Geralt--replied. 

The bald man, who had turned Floireans away, stepped out of the front of the crowd. He shook as he moved closer, and he would not look at her face.

“You look hungry,” he said, his terror warbling his voice. “We saved these for you.”

A plate of bannocks rattled against the floor as he set it down along with a mug of nog. The image of Floireans flickered, and the black pits of her eyes shifted briefly into something human as she stared down at the offering, then up at the bald man. He curled on himself and shuffled back from her terrible attention. 

The woman in fine cloth cleared her throat, her gaze flicking to Jaskier, then Geralt, before she stepped closer to the spirit. 

“You, um… You look cold,” she said, and lifted up a folded, fuzzy bundle. “I have a spare blanket.” 

She set the blanket on the floor next to the bannocks, and then unwound the intricately woven shawl from around her body. Her hands trembled as she folded it into a messy square and set it down. 

“This should help,” she said, and offered a quick, furtive smile to Floireans’s ghost. 

“Oh…” the spirit replied, and reached the blackened fingers of one hand toward the blanket, her whole body swaying with the urge to take a step.

Geralt turned, searching for the landlord. The final piece of his spell. There was a shuffle as several people moved out of the way and the alderman  _ escorted _ the man forward, and shoved slightly. One might have expected anger on his face, or for him to turn with a shout and a raised fist. Instead, he bowed his head as a penitent man and met the spectre’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and the steadiness of his heartbeat suggested it was true. 

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of socks knotted together in the middle. The toe of each one hung with something heavy, and he held it out for the ghost to see. 

“I want you to have this,” he went on. “It’s not much… a couple of crowns and a piece of coal to light a fire, plus the wool socks to keep you warm.

He knelt carefully and placed the gift down with a tinkle of coins.

Floireans flickered, disappeared for a brief moment. When she returned, her skeletal features were gone, replaced by the face of the woman she had been. Her hand rose slowly to her mouth, and her body wracked with a sob. Her fingers trembled against her pale skin as tears streamed down her cheeks. 

Geralt cut a look at the alderman, who visibly swallowed and squared his shoulders. No one had died yet, so that was a mark in the witcher’s favor. The alderman moved forward slowly and put a hand on the landlord’s arm, nudging him back into the crowd. He cleared his throat.

“Floireans, my dear,” he said, with a voice like melted butter. “Won’t you come in?”

The ghost stared at him and blinked out more tears, then scanned the crowd. Many stared back. Some nodded and smiled nervously. Her gaze settled on Geralt.

“It’s all right,” he told her. “Come on.”

Floireans nodded, her sob bubbling out into a laugh, and she surged across the threshold. 

Light flashed, blinding, and a strong gust of wind blew heaps of snow into the tavern. The townspeople flinched and gasped. Grabbed one another. Hands pointed toward the empty space where the offerings had been, and someone slammed the door closed.

For a moment, no one spoke.

“Is... that it?” the alderman turned to Geralt. “Is it safe?”

The tension in Geralt’s chest released, and he nodded, his expression grim. “I think so.”

At his words, a whoop and a cheer rose up from the crowd. People clapped. Stamped their feet. And Geralt watched them all with a sinking, sick glower. He should walk away, but the smoldering coal in his belly would not let him.

“What are you celebrating?” he shouted, and those nearest him startled at the violence of the sound. The alderman backed away, wide-eyed, as the witcher’s chest rose and fell like bellows. “You all created the monster!”

“Geralt.” Jaskier tugged at his arm, and he jerked away.

“Your greed. Your callousness.” The anger boiled his blood. “You may have escaped the price, but not all of your neighbors can say the same. The people of Nevais would do well to remember this night. It wasn’t swords that saved you.”

He turned before anyone could reply and stalked away to the sound of subdued chattering and the clatter of footsteps. 


	4. Epilogue

The blizzard gave up its gasping breath and settled into light snowfall. The townsfolk may have been able to return to their homes with effort, but there was little point in Geralt and Jaskier trying to travel to their next destination with the roads as they were. Geralt didn’t mind the empty tavern. The peaceful quiet, while the tavern was still pleasantly festooned. 

He found himself a spot by the central hearth to read and sample Tormod’s lagers and ales. Jaskier surrounded himself with papers and notes, scratching lines and picking out disconnected notes in search of a tune. There would be a “Ballad of the Snow Woman” by the end of Yule savaed, the witcher was sure. He wondered idly how much of it would be true. If kindness and giving would save the day. If the townsfolk would be the heroes or villains.

They didn’t talk much. And if their fingers touched, Jaskier pulled away, taking a bit of Geralt’s heart with him. A smile offered reflected one back like caught snow--melting too quickly to see. By dinner, the witcher’s guts could have been plucked like a lute string. But everything he tried was met with vague melancholy and empty assurances that nothing was wrong. 

Doing nothing had rarely been so exhausting. And when Jaskier yawned and gathered his things to head to bed, Geralt followed him automatically, still puzzling it over. He had to do something. Mend it somehow. Or else send Jaskier away so the distance between them counted in miles. 

As they mounted the stairs, Geralt’s gaze alighted on the mistletoe lining the beam overhead. An idea struck him. Silly, but seriousness had so far failed. As the bard passed under the beam, Geralt reached for his wrist, encircling it with gentle fingers. 

Jaskier turned, a question in his expression, and Geralt glanced up with a small smile at the decorated beam. He moved, gliding up into Jaskier’s space. Released his wrist, and used both hands to brush his fingers along the bard’s cheeks and jaw. He settled one on the back of Jaskier’s neck, the full motion of the caress so fluid the man’s lips parted as he drew a breath of surprise. 

Blue eyes widened. 

And a flare of affection drove Geralt closer. Barely touching lips before he pressed a full kiss. Let the affection bloom on his tongue as he swiped gently, seeking permission. Jaskier made a  _ sound _ , as he curled the fingers not holding his notes into Geralt’s shirt. Opened for him. 

Up another step. A half turn of a dance. Geralt licked in and sucked as he drew them both down the hall. 

Jaskier freed himself, panting. Made space without letting go.“What are you doing?”

“Apologizing.” Geralt stepped, stepped, backwards. Sinuous. Drawing his companion with him. “I was too busy to honor the Longest Night.” Perhaps  _ he _ was the one with the longing. 

Jaskier’s gaze dropped to the witcher’s mouth.

“Merrymaking,” Geralt said, his voice an amber honey. He stepped back. Closer to their door. “An exchange of gifts.” 

Jaskier’s heart hammered as they reached the room. He barely breathed.

Geralt pulled him in, cheek to cheek. Slid an arm around his waist.

“Holding a loved one close,” he murmured. 

Jaskier jerked back, and Geralt’s heart jumped. He didn’t look angry. He looked stunned. No… Color crept up the bard’s neck. Embarrassed? That didn’t make any sense, but Geralt loosened his grip and offered a lopsided smile. 

“You skipped a step,” he said. “Started with the gifts.”

Without looking away, he opened the door and tipped his head. Jaskier went first. Found the nearest surface to drop his notes onto and unslung his lute case from his shoulder. The door clicked shut behind them.

“I did…” Jaskier said. 

When he turned, Geralt was there, prowling quietly closer. He reached for Jaskier’s hand and brought it to his mouth. Kissed the backs of those skilled fingers before placing them on his shoulder. Ran his hands down Jaskier’s shirt to feel the heat of him. The shape and muscle.

A sharp breath. “Silly me,” Jaskier said, and Geralt hummed.

He ran his palms around his lover’s back, up his spine. Long, seeking strokes. Down.

Hips.

Bottom.

“Is”--Jaskier grabbed his wrists, breathing hard--”is this just…”

The witcher’s whole body thrummed. His heart galloped while he held himself still, searching his partner’s eyes. And for a terrible moment, he was there again. The nightmare. This face… beautiful, beloved… shattered to shards, tearing him apart. “Just what?” he said, his voice a rasp. 

Jaskier looked away and slowly extracted himself from the embrace. “You don’t owe me for it,” he said.

Cold confusion slammed through the witcher’s body, and he backed away “I thought--” 

“I don’t want  _ payment _ ,” Jaskier told him.

Geralt retreated to the chair where the coat lay folded and ran his fingers through the fur. It all started with this. With that day. 

“Care went into this,” he said, petting the fox fur. “Attention to detail for what I would need. And a lot of money besides.” He cast a look over his shoulder. “I don’t get many gifts,” he said, not sure what he wanted to convey. That it was special. That he lacked social graces. That he was at a loss. 

Jaskier shrugged lightly. “I thought you deserved it. And I wanted you to know that.”

Geralt let the words seep in, light rain across parched earth. He touched the leather. “I have to ask…” he said, and lifted an eyebrow at his companion. “The basilisk hide?”

Another shrug and an impish smile. “Your brothers.”

Geralt frowned at him. “You haven’t seen them for a year!”

“That  _ you _ know of.” Jaskier smirked. “It may surprise you to know they can write letters.”

Geralt stared at him a moment, then turned back to the coat. His pulse quickened as he thought it over. Jaskier had instigated a conspiracy on his behalf. And maybe… he did know about the Bear School after all. 

_ Care _ went into it, Geralt had said. His heart squeezed, and he felt his chest go hot with lifting embers. He had been wrong.

_ Love _ went into it. 

And even now he had not replied in kind. 

He nodded to himself and turned to find Jaskier watching him, arms crossed over his chest. Defensive, his eyes as unsure as Geralt had felt a moment ago. The witcher held his gaze and crossed the space slowly. Cupped the bard’s face in both hands.

“Julian…” he whispered, an invocation to summon the intimate heart. Rarely used.  _ Always _ whispered.

The guard in Jaskier's eyes dropped, and Geralt kissed him gently. Unhurried.

“I love it,” he added between tastes. “It’s perfect.”

And then parted as a new idea formed. Jaskier drew an unsteady breath, and Geralt could smell the salt of tears coming to his eyes. He stepped around him, offering a moment of privacy, and pulled the blanket and pillows from the bed, dropping them in a heap on the sheepskin in front of the fire. 

He retrieved the lute from its case and held it out.

“I missed all the carols,” he said, with a pointed look at the nest on the floor. 

“You… want me to play?” Jaskier asked, taking the lute, his eyes red-rimmed but clear. 

Geralt responded with a grunt, and the bard arranged himself on a pillow on the blanket. Once he was settled, Geralt slid behind him, looping his arms around his middle. He placed a kiss on Jaskier’s neck, tasting his skin, and then hovered his lips near the bard’s ear.

“I want you to be happy,” he rumbled, and nuzzled into Jaskier’s hair. “Because you make me happy.” He moved his hands, rubbing large circles over Jaskier’s chest until he relaxed. “Overwhelmed,” Geralt whispered. “And you always say I never ask you to sing. So I’m asking.”

Jaskier turned to look at him, eyes still shining. And Geralt kissed him again. This time soft and lingering, an accumulated snowdrift of kindnesses. When he stopped, he pressed his mouth against his lover’s shoulder.

The bard cleared his throat and plucked a few strings. 

“Geralt?” he asked.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing...”

A strum of a chord perfectly in tune. The beginning of “My Wish for Yule.” Then a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> The snow woman is a yuki-onna from Japanese mythology. I didn't want to use an obviously Japanese name in a setting in which that country doesn't exist, but that was what I researched for the story.


End file.
